Johnny Depp's 'Dark Shadows' Will Be Nothing Like The '60s TV Series (Video)

The TV show was filled with bloopers and bats on visible wires, but the film promises macabre humor, and a visual retro-70's feast

March 27, 2012

by

Elizabeth Snead

Johnny Depp and Tim Burton’s fans are salivating over their hero's remake of Dark Shadows, the long-running (1.225 episodes) cult favorite TV soap opera. But fans of the original show aren't quite sure what to expect.

The series ran from 1966 to 1971 and one of the most charming things about the daytime drama was the plethora of bloopers – wrong props, bats flitting about on visible wires, falling scenery, muffed dialogue, the crew seen walking through shots, the cast trying in vain to ignore them -- in every episode.

The original Dark Shadows dialoguewas very stilted and the showtook itself very seriously. Still, due to the recurring onset mishaps, itwas hilarious (in that so bad it's good way) and highly addictive. In contrast, Depp and Burton’s take looks flat-out funny, over-the-top and very vampire tongue-in-cheek. Depp and Burton will no doubt bring the same zany macabre humor that they put into Edward Scissorhands (1990), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), and Alice in Wonderland (2010).

Not to mention that combined gothic/ '70s set décor, makeup and campy costumes are light years away from the plywood makeshift Collinwood manor and its denizens' frumpy fashions. Check out Vanity Fair's Dark Shadows gallery (amusingly titled "The Young and The Lifeless") to see new photos of the characters and costumes.

Depp has been dying (sorry) to play 200-year-old Barnabas Collins, a character first brought to life by the still-living actor Jonathan Frid, who was a boyhood hero of Depp’s. Like Depp, we also used to run home from school to watch Dark Shadows and to be honest, Barnabas was considered by his fans -- if not on Twilight hunk Robert Pattinson’s hotness level – pretty darn sexy back then.

And with Michelle Pfeiffer, who portrays Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, Helena Bonham Carter as the psychiatrist, Julia Hoffman, and the indominable Eva Green, (best known for being a Bond Girl in Casino Royale) as the witch Angelique, this movie will be worth skipping school (or work) to see.